Trump’s former chief of staff ‘recommends’ that president ‘accept a peaceful transfer of power’

President has startled many in recent months by repeatedly refusing to guarantee smooth transition

As Donald Trump rages against vote counts that show him losing ground to Democratic rival Joe Biden, baselessly alleging fraud while calling for ballot counting to be halted, a former White House chief of staff has claimed the president will “absolutely” leave office peacefully.

“I recommend that he accept a peaceful transition of power, which I think he would do absolutely anyway,” Mick Mulvaney told CNBC.

“Look, the president is a fighter, there’s no question about it, and you’ll see him fighting down to the very last,” he said — then asserting that if Joe Biden wins, “you can absolutely guarantee a peaceful transition of power. I just hope the same is true on the other side”.

Mr Mulvaney, who is currently the US special envoy to Northern Ireland, served as acting chief of staff from December 2018 to March this year. During his tenure, he became a key figure in the Ukraine scandal that led to Mr Trump’s impeachment; his replacement by Mark Meadows was announced by Mr Trump on Twitter.

Worries that Mr Trump will refuse to give up power without a (possibly literal) fight stretch back well into 2020. Polled consistently behind Joe Biden from the end of the Democratic primaries onwards, Mr Trump began insisting without evidence that the Democrats were preparing to “steal” the election by expanding mail-in voting — raising concerns that Mr Trump was setting the stage for a flat-out refusal to leave office.

Interviewers thus began asking him whether he would promise to accept a loss and leave power peacefully if defeated, and he repeatedly dodged the question, answering in the first presidential debate on 1 October that he would have to wait and see.

He finally seemed to commit to a non-violent aftermath in a televised town hall event on 15 October, but he still qualified his answer, invoking a false story about discarded ballots.

“[The Obama administration] spied heavily on my campaign and they tried to take down a duly elected sitting president, and then they talk about ‘will you accept a peaceful transfer?’,” he told moderator Savannah Guthrie.

“And the answer is, yes, I will, but I want it to be an honest election and so does everybody else. When I see thousands of ballots dumped in a garbage can and they happen to have my name on it, I'm not happy about it.”

Mr Trump is not the only elected Republican disinclined to guarantee post-election order. Earlier in the campaign, the House of Representatives passed a symbolic resolution committing itself to a peaceful transfer of power, but five Republican congressmen voted against it.

Among them was Florida’s Matt Gaetz, a pugnacious Trump supporter, who said on the floor that the bill amounted to cynical manipulation by Mr Biden’s party. It was “part of the Democrats' plan to lay the groundwork for a colour revolution,” he said, “the ousting of an elected leader and calling it democracy”.

Mr Trump and other Republicans have often claimed that Hillary Clinton refused to accept the outcome of the 2016 election, and that therefore Mr Trump should not have to either. However, in her concession speech, Ms Clinton specifically endorsed a peaceful transition.

“Donald Trump is going to be our president,” she said. “We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead. Our constitutional democracy enshrines the peaceful transfer of power.

“We don't just respect that. We cherish it. It also enshrines the rule of law; the principle we are all equal in rights and dignity; freedom of worship and expression. We respect and cherish these values, too, and we must defend them.”